10 things I learned in 10 years as a Content Strategist, by Rachel Lovinger Everything is content. It’s not just copy, it’s metadata, and medium. “The Medium is the Message” – Marshall McLuhan It’s the IA, the breakdown, etc. Content is communication. Traditional media was a broadcast communication model. You just hope the message was…

It’s not a technology problem, by Leisa Reichelt Leisa works in government. It can feel like being a thousand monkeys on typewriters, but it’s for a good purpose. “Be clear about what you’re doing. The reason is unlikely to be ‘transformation.’” -Kate Tarling “Far too many people claim they’re doing ‘transformation’ when they’re merely doing the…

Content as Connection, by Hilary Marsh Our organizations are in the content business, but we don’t necessarily know that that’s what we do. We create content all day, no matter what we’re doing. The content we produce might show up in the world in ways we’re not expecting. We want our content to make a…

Opening Keynote, by Kristina Halvorson We come to content strategy from many different paths, but we do have some things in common. Kristina began in 2004. She was a web copywriter, and she remembers watching her first usability test and seeing people interacting with, using, looking for content. This is when people would do content last, with no…

Q: What do content and feminism have in common? A: I don’t care if you use a different word to describe them, as long as we both know they’re important. In a recent webinar, someone asked me “how do you handle it, when someone on your team asks you for text or uses the term words…

Journey maps are a key component of building a strategy. But when we talk about “strategy” it can mean a lot of different things: Creating a set of plans for creating and promoting content over time Setting up a plan for a content migration and content governance Defining the content touch points for a user’s…

I can’t recommend Contagious, by Jonah Berger, enough. Very few books get a 5 star rating from me. 5 stars, to me, means this book was so fantastic that I want to own it, so that I can reread it again and again. The few books that do get this rating tend to be classics…

Content strategy for personalization: Five steps toward building thoughtful targeted experiences, by Colin Eagan What is targeting, and why do I care? Targeting is personalized content/layout for a person. It’s adaptive to a unique user trait, and it can be based on zip code, browsing history, etc. Targeted = customized, based on data. Did you…

Customer service design: Content strategy in the spaces between, by Mike Atherton As a child of the ’80s, Mike (in England) sent away to the US for comic books. It would take at least 6 weeks to get the comics, but the store sent a postcard to let him know the comics were on their…